Posted 22 Jun 2012 / 0
io9 “Could Humans Evolve into a Giant Hive Mind?” What I find fascinating about this nice journalistic piece is the biases in particular scientists that it exposes once it asks for uninformed speculation. Most prominently, Joan Strassman betrays her biases about relatedness (we have to be highly related to be a superorganism, period) and the Read More
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Cooperation, Human Uniqueness, Prediction, Superorganisms, Web
Posted 22 Jun 2012 / 0
Nature News “Lizard’s future hinges on voluntary measures” What is so annoying about this policy is that it ignores the fact that landowners could have been “volunteering” to not destroy habitat well before this species became endangered. Allowing “voluntary measures” to trump the mandates of the Endangered Species Act takes the teeth out of the Read More
A Minor Post, Conservation Biology, Law, Public Policy, Web
Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0
Evolving Economics “Group selection and the social sciences” Rationally Speaking “Report from the Consilience conference, part I“, “Report from the Consilience conference, part II“, and “Report from the Consilience conference, part III“
A Minor Post, Conferences, Group Selection, Web
Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0
Interface “A model balancing cooperation and competition can explain our right-handed world and the dominance of left-handed athletes“
A Minor Post, Competition, Cooperation, Evolutionary Modeling, Web
Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0
Nature “Piled too high“
A Minor Post, Science as a career, Web
Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0
New Scientist “Lost toad comes back from the dead” ScienceShot “‘Vanished’ Toad Sighted“
A Minor Post, Conservation Biology, Extinction, Web
Posted 20 Jun 2012 / 0
Steady State The Daly News “Real Dichotomies Are Not Made ‘False’ by Soft Science or Political Pandering” What’s really valuable here is the clarification of what is cultural construction (‘there does not have to be a conflict between economic growth and environmental protection’) and what is scientific reality (‘there is actually an empirically-demonstrable conflict between Read More
A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Conservation Biology, Economics, Ethics, Sustainability, Web
Posted 20 Jun 2012 / 0
Science News “Peacocks ruffle feathers, make a rumble“
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Communication, MSCI-363, Biological Origins of Sound & Music, Web
Posted 19 Jun 2012 / 0
Science News “Diet Sodas May Confuse Brain’s ‘Calorie Counter’“
A Minor Post, Health & Medicine, Mismatch theory, Neuroscience, Web
Posted 19 Jun 2012 / 0
ScienceShot “These Bears Count” Scientific American The Thoughtful Animal blog “The Average Bear Is Smarter Than You Thought” This finding sheds fascinating light on the question of why counting exists. Because bears are not social animals, it appears that counting is not just about keeping track of fellow group members or assessing the level of Read More
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Behavior, Web
